Indholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2023 i Classic Racer

By George! We’re not quite sure how to take this photo, taken during the 1978 Senior TT. Coming around Signpost Corner is hardened road racer George Fogarty being confronted by a man with a camera, sat on the actual pavement taking snaps… We understand that the whole ‘health and safety’ thing hadn’t really kicked off by the late-1970s, but, while most spectators for the race were amassed up on the banks as per usual, one intrepid (we’d take a guess at amateur) photographer wanted to get a shot from a different angle. George Fogarty of course, is famous for being father of TT winner and four-time World Superbike champion Carl, as well as being the man who (it could be argued) cost Barry Sheene the win at Silverstone in the…

PEOPLE By the early 1970s, Len Perry had achieved almost legendary status in his native New Zealand, and halfway through 1973 it looked quite possible that his son Geoff might emulate his successes. Geoff had begun to make his name racing a home-tuned and developed T20 Suzuki, later progressing to a TR500. In 1971 he finished 5th at Daytona and won the Singapore and Malaysian GPs plus the 250cc and 500cc classes of the New Zealand TT. That December he harried Giacomo Agostini at the Oran Park meeting in New South Wales, led the 1972 Daytona 200 until his TR750 broke its drive chain on the penultimate lap, and finished 2nd in the Ontario 250-mile race to Paul Smart’s Seeley-Kawasaki. Such performances brought him to the attention of the United…

IN DETAIL: Growing up in the UK, when NSU was mentioned, mopeds came to mind, specifically the NSU model called the Quickly! Little did I know about the rich racing history NSU has until researching the Sportmax… The company even entered the first TT in 1907 and finished 5th in the single-cylinder class. NSU realised that to capture attention and sales they needed to race and attempt to gain world speed records. Just prior to the Second World War, NSU had supercharged 250 and 350cc race bikes that were the most powerful machines on the grid. After the war though, the FIM banned supercharging, NSU responded with a radical four-cylinder 500cc bike. While the design showed promise, poor results forced a rethink. In 1952, a 250cc parallel-twin, DOHC race bike…

While Steve Hislop’s first race was at Croft in 1979, it wasn’t until 1983 that he decided to try his hand at road racing. His brother Garry had won the 350cc Newcomers’ race at the Manx Grand Prix in 1982 but was tragically killed in a race at Silloth just two months later. Undeterred, Hizzy entered the event the following year (without telling his mother) and loved it from the very outset. He recalled: “The buzz of riding the mountain course was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped for. Racing flat-out on real roads without worrying about tractors, coppers, or anything coming the other way, is an amazing thrill, and that’s what attracts riders to the TT year after year, despite the dangers.” In the same race that his…

Tony Rutter scooped his first of seven Isle of Man TT race wins 50 years ago. Tony – who passed away in March 2020 – enjoyed a long career: three decades riding a wide range of different machines. Many felt Rutter was one of the most underrated riders of his generation. Born in the West Midlands, Tony started racing aged just 20 and was soon heading to the Isle of Man TT in 1965 for the first time. The Island was to be the home of some of his biggest successes, the first coming with a podium alongside Giacomo Agostini in 1972 in the Junior TT. He would snatch his first win on the course in 1973 in the same class with an average speed of 101.99mph. He would take…

Classic Racer, Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs, LN9 6JR. CRletters@mortons.co.ukfacebook.com/ClassicRacerMag/ star letter I DISAGREE WITH RALPH! Dear CR I feel compelled to write after reading the letter by Ralph Crellin in the March/April edition of Classic Racer. Each to their own, but I basically completely disagree with his views on the magazine. To me, the content has always been excellent and continues to be so. I thoroughly enjoy the coverage of modern classic events such as the Goodwood Revival, and don’t believe CR should only include the days when the world was in black and white. ‘Back in the Day’ and ‘Show us Yours’ are great additions and missed in the latest issue. The perceived ‘poor quality pictures’ (and most aren’t anyway) add to the charm…

TEST As the post-Covid return to normality continues to unfold, there are some events we’ve previously highlighted on our wall calendars which sadly won’t be returning to brighten our lives just yet. One of these should have taken place down under over January’s Australia Day weekend, but didn’t –whether it’s gone into hibernation, or has been definitively cancelled, is unclear. But for sure the absence of the 28th running of the Island Classic staged on the Phillip Island GP Circuit each January left a big hole in the 2023 Aussie two-wheeled calendar, both for those taking part in it, and avid race fans alike from all over Australia, and much further afield, too. Over the past decade, this festival of more than 50 races staged over the three-day weekend has…

PEOPLE Nigel Bosworth – known to all as ‘Boz’ in the paddock, where he spent decades as a racer, test rider and team manager – has tucked away his breakfast and is on his second coffee of the morning: time to ask him about THAT season finale. “At the end of 1990, I got some sponsorship from Datatool – Simon Hill a lovely bloke… And the new Yamaha V-twin came out and Mitsui Yamaha’s Andrew Smith bailed me out – I knew by then I wasn’t going to be a world champion. It was hard to get into Grand Prixs really – we weren’t in vogue back then and it was all cigarette companies and they wanted Europeans! “I mean, I think I’d proved myself at European and world level.…

PEOPLE In 1978, as his workload continued to increase, Gerald Davison – who had founded the Honda Britain team and was general manager at Honda UK – hired Barry Symmons as team co-ordinator. By that point, Symmons already had some involvement in the bike racing world, but he originally got into the sport by mistake. “We lived near Goodwood, and I used to go and watch a lot of car races as a boy,” he says. “Then one day I went to Brands Hatch sometime in the 1960s to watch what I thought was a car race, but it was actually a bike race. I remember seeing Mike Hailwood, Phil Read, and Bill Ivy, and I also remember peering over the fence eagerly watching the Honda team – they were…

Phillip McCallen had an all-action style – even when racing on the dangerous road circuits of the Isle of Man, the North West 200 and the Ulster Grand Prix. With nicknames like ‘SuperMac’ and ‘The Portadown Flyer’ you knew he was going to be quick, but his style was all hunched over the front of the bike, with elbows well and truly out. It’s not a surprise then that McCallen started out like many racers do – by going way too fast on the roads! He recalls: “It was 1984 when I realised I was doing some bloody stupid things on the road. Unfortunately that continued while I was racing: I hit a dry stone wall in a Ford Fiesta XR2 at 80mph and injured my leg!” McCallen would go…

PEOPLE In the 50 years since he won the Bemsee 500cc championship – the premier club championship of the time – Dave Street has done many things… This talented racer would own a bike shop, become a race school instructor, an advertising rep for Motor Cycle News, become a London fireman, a bike breaker and film and TV ‘extra’, all while keeping his love of bikes alive. Dave was living in the flat above Oasis Motorcycles when Tom Kirby informed him that he was ready to sell up. So Street took over the hallowed Kirby premises, a convenient move because of impending demolition of the Oasis premises. “I had always remained good friends with Tom Kirby and when he decided to retire and sell his shop he came to me.…

The turn of the new century saw World Superbikes enter a period of change. For so long, the rules had been simple and effective: it was pretty much twins versus fours, Italy versus Japan. From the start of the series in 1988, World Superbikes saw 750cc four-cylinder machines, ostensibly manufactured in Japan, in the form of Kawasaki’s GPX, ZXR and ZX-7R 750s, Honda’s VFR750RR RC30 and later RC45s, Suzuki’s GSX-R750 and Yamaha’s FZR750, OW-01 and later YZF750 take on Ducati’s booming twins, notably their 851, 888, 916, 955 and 996/998cc bikes. So well-tuned were the rules that only tweaks were really required. Initially the rules limited four-cylinder motors to 750cc with a 165 kilo weight limit. The twin could go to 1000cc and – initially at least – a weight…

The last issue of Classic Racer got me feeling all nostalgic – as I guess it should do, being as I’ve just turned 70. Firstly, the great article from Alan Cathcart on the Harley XR750 TT, and particularly Cal Rayborn at the Match races in 1972, well, where do I start? I was 18 years old and stood on the bank at Brands Hatch with some mates, having just endured a traumatic trip through London from a sleepy village near Royston, Hertfordshire. Not only did we have to navigate our way through London and the Blackwall tunnel, my Triumph or Triton, semi-home built thing would only go 30 miles before the points needed adjusting and cleaning as there was so much oil everywhere it was getting into the mag… So,…